1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a system, method and program product for dynamically adding resources to, or updating resources in, a web application. Specifically, the present invention provides a way to maintain session information when dynamically adding JAVA™ resources to, or updating JAVA™ resources in, a web application (“JAVA” is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc., Santa Clara, Calif.).
2. Related Art
Web application servers typically allocate each web application its own class loader. To this extent, new class files can be dynamically added to a web application (or replaced) without restarting the web application server. Unfortunately, when a particular web application receives new class files, it invalidates, and therefore loses, all its current session information. As known in the art, a session is a sequence of service requests by a single user using a single client to access a server. The information maintained in the session across requests is called session state. Session state may include both information visible to the user (shopping cart contents, for example) and invisible application control information (such as user preferences).
In view of the foregoing, there exists a need for a system, method and program product for dynamically adding JAVA™ resources (e.g. JAVA™ ResourceBundles, class files, properties, images, etc.) to, or updating JAVA™ resources in, a web application without requiring the web application or a corresponding web application server to be restarted and without losing session state.